The Great Battle of Wesley Willis v Donna Summer

I think I've got a new neurological disorder--somebody alert the APA! I have TWO cases of the earworms (or as Oliver Sacks likes to call it "involuntary musical imagery"). The first, Donna Summer's "McArthur Park":



The other, Wesley Willis' "Rock n Roll McDonald's":



The Donna Summer is stuck pretty good you guys. So much so that I had a dream about it the other night. The following dialog occurred, in the dream, on the phone (this is all I can remember):

Unknown person: I can't come over I am camping. At McArthur Park.

Me: McArthur BART (an Oakland train stop)? Why would you camp at a BART station?

Unknown person: McArthur Park!

Me: I am hearing: McArthur BART.

Unknown person: McArthur Park! I'm at the park! It's melting in the dark!

(The end).

They say that songs stay in one's head because there is an element within the tune itself: the melodic structure is hard to follow, the lyrics don't make any sense; and the mind is left puzzled and trying to fit the pieces together. In this case I think the problem has to do with the latter explanation. Probably the part where Summer says something about a "yellow cotton dress foaming like a wave" or "birds like tender babies in your hand" or the cake with green frosting melting in the rain. I've sung this song to people and they don't believe that these are the actual lyrics. But they are--watch the video.

With the Wesley Willis, I think it's the pre-programmed Casio country beat, especially the middle instrumental segment. I mean, I think the lyrics are pretty straightforward: "they serve quarter pounders, they will put pounds on you!" But I probably have this song stuck in my head because John W made me sing it all day last weekend, because I can sing that one pitch-perfect and I know all the words (to the chorus).

Donna Summer may have won this battle--considering the fact that she has seeped into my dream realm--but I swear to you Donna Summer, the war has just begun! I am full of obscure songs that will beat out your bizarro cake song one of these days!

DREAMS

For some reason I've been able to remember nearly all of my dreams for the last week. Maybe it's all the turkey in my diet, or the whiskey-spiked soy egg nog. (Which, FYI, is the best thing to come out of the holiday season--ever--and that's a fact. I love soy egg nog so much that if I were to get a cut I would probably bleed soy egg nog).

Anyways. Dreams. Carl Jung said in "The Meaning of Psychology for Modern Man":

The dream is a little hidden door in the innermost and most secret recesses of the soul, opening into that cosmic night which was psyche long before there was any ego consciousness...in dreams we put on the likeness of that more universal, truer, more eternal man dwelling in the darkness of primordial night. There he is still the whole, and the whole is in him, indistinguishable from nature and bare of all egohood. It is from these all-uniting depths that the dream arises, be it never so childish, grotesque, and immoral.

I like the idea of being an "eternal man dwelling into the darkness of primordial night", however, if that's true, I think the "secret recesses" of my soul are really kinda superficial. I mean, take this one that I posted a few years ago. Also, here are some quotes and scenarios that have filled my sleeping state recently:

--"I don't mind walking the catwalk in a pumpkin suit, but I just hate it when they make you say 'thanks for the salad' before you do a turn." --unknown girl.

--"Put my love into the sauce you spread on all your friends." --I have NO idea who this dude was in my dream, but he said this to me. And I think he was wearing a Peter Pan costume.

--"I just came to deliver your mail. Yeah, I sing and work for USPS. Is Andy here?" --Emily Newsom, Joanna Newsom's sister, who my friend Andy claims he knows.

--In a dream that I had a few nights ago, me and my friend Crazy P are trying to catch a flight to Tokyo, but she has to stop at Starbucks first. We are already late to the airport, but she has to stop at a second Starbucks. Eventually we are over an hour late, and she must stop at the Starbucks at Dolores Park (which does not exist in real life, thank god). We miss our flight. The end.

--In my most recent dream, I am visiting my friend Sarah V at her new home in the Lower Haight which is an old dilapidated Victorian. She lets me do laundry there. She shares her laundry room with the rest of the building. From the window I can look up into the neighboring building to see a step aerobics class in session. One of Sarah's neighbors tells me that they are a cult of "perfect healthy living". I look up and say, "Shit! Is that a smoothie he is balancing on his head?" --Yes, the neighbor says, that is the instructor, he is trying to teach them how to balance a smoothie on their heads while doing step aerobics. The end.

In summary, here is a good comic from toothepastefordinner:

JUST ONE OF MANY MEANINGLESS DREAMS

Last night I dreamt that Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder were battling it out in a scat singing contest. Jackson just blew Stevie out of the water, it was crazy. Crazy amazing! Stevie's major setback was that he did not seem to understand that scat involves using your voice like a jazz instrument and that whole words just do not count. (For instance, "be be du bop do be!" would work, but "my cherie amour" would not). Jackson really impressed the judges with his variations of the term "shamone". He was turning shamone inside out, upside down and sideways, singing stuff like "sha mo mo mony sha me sha mu mone". Just brilliant.

When I awoke I was left wondering just what happened to Michael these days, besides the obvious new-found talent for scat. I found out that he is in Bahrain, dressing like a Muslim woman. I just picture him hangin out on the beach in his burka, scatting to Louis Armstrong...